Business Practices in Libraryland: Process Management

Figuring out the best way to get something done can feel like operating a Rube Goldberg Machine... Not in a good way.

So, last time, we talked about Project Management, and how the three legged approach of time, money, and scope affect your operations and projects and can make or break how efficiently you work. Now, we're going to get into the weeds and examine that efficiency. How well do you own your processes?

Process management is a touchy area, and can be heavily influenced by:

Too Many Chiefs... Not Enough Indians.

How many "bosses" are in a given process? Do the workers feel empowered to make suggestions to boost productivity? Or are they overworked, and tired of hearing different things from different people?

We've Always Done It Like This...

This statement is the death knell to progress. Just because something has always been done a certain way, doesn't mean it's the best way (stay tuned for a story about Cultural Training... an issue related to this.)

Change Freaks Me Out...

Your ability to shift your mentality at the library will only be as efficient as your ability to calm and prepare your staff for some ambiguity. If they are uncomfortable with change (and a LOT of us are), you have to be able to talk them through it.

We've Been Here Before.

Staff who have been around a while have certainly seen their fair share of change and change makers. Attempts to innovate a process can be met with eyerolls. Because... because they've seen it all before or it didn't make a difference last time.

Nota Bene:

There is some serious wisdom to be shared by the older workers. I'm by no means advocating for you to disregard this population's opinions about things. Chances are they HAVE seen it before, but maybe there's reasons that this time it's different. I'm going to give you some tips for dealing with weary workers down below.

And the list goes on...

The fact remains, the majority of your workday is made up of how effectively, or ineffectively, you complete the processes that drive your decision and activities.

Appian.com defines Process Management as the "aligning processes with an organization’s strategic goals, designing and implementing process architectures, establishing process measurement systems that align with organizational goals, and educating and organizing managers so that they will manage processes effectively."

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In short, your life gets a lot easier if you

figure out the best way to work.

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Taking a look at the flow for each of the major processes in your library is a great place to begin. No one is going to expect your workers to achieve Six-Sigma efficiency.

For the unfamiliar, Six-Sigma is a "performance improvement approach that aims at leaner business operations and a quality level at less than 3.4 defects per a million opportunities." (https://www.6sigma.us/) They achieve this goal by following a five step process of examination: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control and Repeat. The people who specialize in this are called Blackbelts. How cool is that?

I speak from experience when I say, this principle of 3.4 defects/million is VERY hard to quantify in a non-manufacturing situation. However, the five key principles can be applied to measure how effectively your team is working, or how a process is working for you.

Just because you don't achieve strict Six-Sig level efficiency, you can:

DEFINE

Figure out what's most important for any given task. This is where you need to get all your Chiefs (ahem... Key Stake Holders) and current process holders around a table and have them suss out what is the MOST IMPORTANT part. Then you focus all your energy on getting that done in as few steps as possible.

MEASURE

Take a hard look at your processes, and decide what the current state looks like. How many current steps exist in the process. Where are the pain points? Spend time observing this process and record your findings. Don't try to get ahead of things by making changes. You have to understand where you are starting to celebrate the outcomes once a process is fixed.

ANALYZE

Bring everyone back together and discuss your findings. Verify that the process you've uncovered is correct for most of your workers. Talk about what parts they thing is working, and what parts they think isn't. For this part, having the actual process holders there is critical. The people actually doing the work will be the best ones to inform on where it works and where it doesn't.

IMPROVE

Here's where it gets fun. Try to evaluate what the key steps are, and only do those. If there is a step in the process that feels heavy, or avoidable, then cut it. Keep the process from start to finish as simple as possible. And codify. Write down what you're doing and make sure everyone understand the new process.

CONTROL

Put it into motion and see how it works. Expect pushback from some, but make it clear that the beauty of process management is that you can always evaluate and make changes. Ask hesitant employees to adopt the new process for a pre-determined period of time and then get additional feedback. If you've done the steps, they will probably forget to complain about it after a week or two.

REPEAT

This (what I argue) is the most important step. Just because you've done this once doesn't mean that the changes you make will stay the "best way" forever. Life changes, staff changes, and you'll need to keep evaluating your processes to keep your library running smoothly for the long run.

So, that story for the "We've Always Done it Like..." people? This one comes from our the annals of Six-Sigma herself:

A twenty-something finally gets his own place, and decides to cook Christmas dinner for the first time, all by himself. He asks his mom how to cook the Christmas Ham, and she says to cut off the top and the bottom, put it in the pan, and bake it at 350 for 2 hours. The son pushes back and says, "Why do you cut off the top and bottom?" and she says, "Because that's what my mom always did... there must have been a good reason."

At Christmas, the son and the mom sit down with grandma, and the son asks, "Hey Grams... why do we cut the top and bottom off the Christmas ham?" And Grandma looks at her grandson and says, " I always did it like that because it wouldn't fit in my pan otherwise."

Don't be like that. Believing that you have to do something because someone told you it's always been done like that is a perfect example of Cultural Conditioning. Expect better for your library and your staff. Don't waste good ham because Grandma's pan was too small. You have a bigger pan and want all the ham. Go get it!

Next up: Creative Content!

Links:

https://www.rubegoldberg.org/

https://www.6sigma.us/

https://sixsigmadsi.com/grandmas-ham-a-story-of-cultural-training/